Snowball’s Chance

The Team gathered and processed all the intelligence they had on the situation. There were few choices: raid Astro-Core offices for evidence they had ordered the hit on the Team and/or the massacre of the Aslan colony, a blatantly illegal action that would cast doubt on their story, whether or not it succeeded; talk to the Imperial authorities and convince them to deny Astro-Core’s extradition demands, which held only a marginal chance of success without some sort of proof of the Team’s innocence; submit to “due process” and hope for the best, which they believed to be doomed to fail, as Astro-Core held the majority share in the colony and had all the power to do as it pleased, and so would likely fabricate whatever evidence they liked to keep the truth from ever seeing the light of day. They decided, as a backup plan, to head back out to the Aslan site, where they could dig around for clues, let Kella have a little longer to study, and by making a show of their leaving, potentially draw Astro-Core into another confrontation that could be recorded as evidence against them. All agreed, the Proud Mary was readied for departure, and a flight-plan registered with colony traffic-control—the Director commed, and, while expressing his sympathies with their situation, warned that running away would result in official arrest warrants being issued—then, with a close pass over the colony, they made for the SE range.

On arrival at the crevasse, the Team split up: Sam, Buck, ENS Smith and ENS Jones would remain aboard the ship, Sam watching the sensors and scanning comm frequencies for traffic, and Buck on the ship’s laser, to provide security (the ship would hover inverted, as the laser was in the dorsal turret); Ella, Haank, Abe, and Kella dismounted to descend into the crevasse.

As they set up autograpnels for the climb, Haank noticed some unfamiliar boot-prints in the snow, and alerted everyone to the potential of a trap. At the bottom of the cavern, Haank proceeded in first, scanning ahead with his sensor pack, in biosniffer mode—he picked up a number of other human biosignatures—and continued down the “street” as the others searched the area for other evidence, and looked for a good place to set up Buck’s button-cam to record the inevitable confrontation. Everyone that had the capability was transmitting video back to the ship to be recorded. On the surface, it seemed that nothing had been disturbed, but Ella had a strong sense that they were walking into an ambush. Then, as Haank followed the biosignatures through the colony, he heard a boot on the stone surface, and spotted a shadowy figure in one of the homes carved out of the cliff-face: LT Richards stepped out, slow-clapping, and with his usual sneer, pointed out the Team’s apparent predictability. Haank matter-of-factly asked him if he had come to finish the job from before, to bury the Team here; Richards responded that he had. Haank then revealed, with a finger-tap to his HUD-glasses, that Richards had just recorded his criminal confession, which had been transmitted back to the ship.

This is when things started to unravel.

LT Richards revealed that he had gunmen hidden throughout the site’s buildings, prepared to kill everyone—including those on the ship—and started negotiating for the handover and/or erasure of all recordings relating to the Aslan site and his own confession. Ella was unwilling to acquiesce without some assurances of the Team’s safety. Richards would allow all but one of the Team to return to the ship, providing they were escorted by one of his men, who would oversee the erasure of the incriminating data; Ella ordered the others to go, as she would be remaining behind. Haank and Abe reluctantly complied, though before Kella could follow, Richards demanded she stay as well, despite Ella’s protestation. Richards then demanded Ella surrender her helmet, with its integral communicator, so the rest of the Team would not be able to communicate with her without his knowledge; Ella protested again, and Richards gave her his communicator in exchange. Richards also demanded that ENS Smith be sent down—as Smith had shot Richards in the back during the previous incident here, it was an easy guess what he meant to do with him.

This is when things completely snapped.

Haank and Abe preceded Richards’ man into the ship, which had been righted to allow access to the ventral airlock hatch for entry. Haank seized the opportunity, as the man had his rifle slung to climb the ladder, and dropped onto him, feet-first, knocking them both out the bottom of the ship. Haank, still prone, went for his pistol, while the other got to his feet and went for his rifle, alerting the other security-men to the trap via his comms (which Richards was unable to hear; one of the men had to come out of hiding to let him know). Haank took careful aim at the man’s weapon arm—expecting a standoff—but the other man fired a burst at him instead, a round hitting Haank in the torso; his armor soaked much of the impact. Haank pulled the trigger three times; an ETC APHD round cut through the man’s monocrys body armor and splintered the bone in his arm, crippling it, leaving the man writhing in pain (afterward, Haank would provide first-aid, preventing him from bleeding out, though the man didn’t exactly “appreciate” the help).

As Haank’s gambit was in progress, Abe was attempting to descend the ladder to provide assistance, when Sam and Buck spotted a telltale smoke-trail of a surface-to-air missile coming from a copse of trees some distance away down the ridge, and Sam performed an evasive maneuver, causing the missile to miss; as the missile returned, Buck snap-shot it down, and promptly turned the ship’s laser on the source of the missile, as Sam pitched the ship forward to allow the turret to bear down on its target. There was nothing left of the area but ash and steam when Buck finally let off the fire-button.

Meanwhile, in the cavern, after some tense words as a result of learning of the attack, Ella pulled her pistol, resigned to a firefight. Backpedalling to cover, she failed to hit Richards, who tackled her to the ground (not wanting to give up his living hostage) and attempted to disarm her. They struggled, Richards slamming her hand against his knee in an attempt to force her to drop the pistol, while she punched at his head with her free hand, eventually stunning him, such that she was able to turn the tables on him. Kella had run for cover, but was shot through the abdomen in the process, as was moaning in pain, bleeding. Richards finally snapped to with Ella’s gun to his head, and agreed to order his men to stand down; they complied.

Afterward, Abe was able to tend to the wounded, and the kill team members were all collected and secured aboard the ship. The ship then returned to the colony, and the Team handed Richards and his men over to the Imperial authorities—all the while knowing that they would be given over to Astro-Core custody (as they were responsible for security at the colony), who would release them. However, Astro-Core made no further attempt on the Team; instead, given the evidence, Mr. Duushii pinned the entire matter on Richards, claiming he had gone rogue. The Team remained behind the extrality zone for the next two weeks, after which a company scout-ship arrived insystem, as predicted.

Notes

• As it turned out, the GM was caught by surprise with the plan to go back out to the site; he was expecting the office raid to go on as originally planned; after talking it over, with several characters bearing the Honesty Disadvantage, we just couldn’t justify the break-in
• Buck used Gizmo to give us the button-camera, expecting to leave the site and catch the security guys tampering afterward; there was some confusion at the Aslan site as to whether or not it was already being used to record, as Richards kept demanding it be handed over—a likely culprit for any apparent logic holes in the ensuing chaos
• Haank’s death-from-above is actually a standard Technique from his Military Zero-G style; been waiting for a chance to use it 😉
• The struggle between Ella and LT Dick over the pistol went on for quite a few rounds, as Ella was strong enough to keep hold of it no matter Dick’s apparent success, which gave her time to actually connect—she was having a really bad dice night
• ENS Smith never got the opportunity to shoot LT Dick (again)
• The GM is now talking about making LT Richards into a recurring villain, since we screwed him over so badly, but left him alive